The cousins arrive in Atlanta late afternoon on Saturday and take public transportation to Ponce de Leon, where Abigail has found a motel that won’t strain their budget too much. Arriving there, Genevieve says of the accommodations, “I can live with it, I guess.”
“You’ll appreciate this place more once you see how much we save.”
As with most lodgings, the motel has free wifi for guests. Genevieve wastes no time in getting her laptop set up.
“You don’t want to rest a little first — maybe do some sight-seeing?” Abigail says.
“I’m just getting set up. Checking how well the Internet works.” Genevieve turns in her chair to face Abigail. “Do you think it’s safe to leave the computer set up here?”
“Should be. If someone’s going to steal it they’ll steal it whether it’s set up or not.”
“I could just carry it with me.”
“Then someone could steal it directly from us.”
“This is true. I did bring my lock. Plus, I used that program that scrambles the drive if someone enters the wrong password too many times.”
“The one Leah had on her site?”
“It’s actually a pretty handy little program. I can see why she’d use it for marketing.”
“Well I want to rest a bit. Four and a half hours in the air was more than I bargained for. Next time I’ll know to get a layover somewhere.”
“I’m not tired,” Genevieve says. “I want to get started figuring out our plans.”
“We have all night tonight and all day tomorrow to map out what we want to accomplish for the first few days. Let’s get out and see some of the city.”
“Hey, where’s that place with the carving?”
“Stone Mountain.”
Genevieve looks it up on the computer.
“Looks like the train doesn’t go there. There’s a couple of buses but they don’t go into the park. You’d think an attraction like that would be easily accessible by public transport.”
“What can we get to on the train?”
Genevieve checks. “Not much of anything actually. Art center. Downtown. We have to take the bus to the train, or walk, or get a car.”
“Please don’t tell me that we’ll have to rent a car.”
“Only if we want to see most of the city. Look, I told you everyone in Atlanta complains about the traffic.”
“Everyone everywhere complains about the traffic. I suppose there’s always Uber.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Genevieve says. “I would like to do some exploring when you’re up to it.”
“Give me half an hour, then we can find something to eat.”
